Beth Cox

It took a little longer than expected, but Amazon.com has followed through on a vow to offer in-store pickup of many items sold via its partnership with the 600-store-plus Circuit City chain of electronics stores. Originally promised in November when the partner deal was announced in August, the mechanics of coordinating online ordering with in-store […]

The last two weeks in November marked the biggest weeks so far this year for median weekly online spending for the average American as holiday shopping began in earnest, according to a report from Goldman Sachs, Harris Interactive and Nielsen//NetRatings. In fact, the report says 25 percent of online shoppers are already finished with their […]

Yahoo! Inc. signed a deal designating Peterson’s, a unit of Thomson Corp., as the primary provider of college search and selection information for the portal’s College Essentials area. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo! also signed a deal with BlackVoices.com, a content provider for African American adults on the Internet. The deal with Lawrenceville, N.J.-based Peterson’s (financial arrangements […]

Atlanta-based Auctionworks, a provider of online sales management services, has launched a new division for the liquidation market, aimed at retailers that want to list and sell surplus products at Internet auction sites, including eBay. Liquidation services include inventory listing and management; sales strategy support; sales performance reports; an integrated payment solution; and fulfillment capabilities. […]

Online insurance broker Quotesmith.com is acquiring privately held Insurance News Network LLC, including its flagship Web site, insure.com in a cash and stock-option deal. Darien, Ill.-based Quotesmith, which provides online quotes from more than 300 insurance companies, said that it paid $1.4 million in cash and issued 316,000 stock options. Quotesmith stock closed at $2.03 […]

Troubled online real estate play Homestore Inc., whose stock took the down escalator last month after the company said it expects a loss instead of a profit, got more bad news today as its chief financial officer, Joseph Shew, resigned for personal reasons. It’s never a good sign at a dot com when the top […]

Web sites need money and “even bears need honey,” so the AmericanGreetings.com site is advising visitors that they “must now charge a small fee for unlimited access” to its most popular greetings. Although some basic electronic greetings “will always remain free,” the company said, it is now charging $11.95 a year, which allows members access […]

Online retailing behemoth Amazon.com is making it easier for the visually impaired to shop on the Internet by launching an alternative version of its Web site designed for customers who use screen access software. The new site, called Amazon Access, is a streamlined version of Amazon’s base site with less text and graphics, but still […]

There’s good news for the online travel sector: An Internet measurement outfit says that the category posted $418 million in consumer sales for the week ending Dec. 2, about 2 percent above average sales in the months prior to Sept. 11. The last time online travel spending crossed this threshold was the week ending Sept. […]

Continuing to seek more diverse sources of revenue, online brokerage E*Trade Group Inc. launched its first actively managed mutual fund, leveraging its fixed-income expertise with the new E*Trade Bond Fund. The new bond fund is an intermediate-term, investment-grade bond fund seeking total return with an emphasis on income, the company said. E*Trade Asset Management, a […]

So much for the vaunted theory that e-commerce is best served by the clicks-and-mortar strategy — Federated Department Stores Inc. is abandoning its Bloomingdales.com e-commerce effort and scaling back substantially at Macys.com. About 100 jobs are being lost and Cincinnati, Ohio-based Federated said it would take a one-time charge of $50 million to $60 million […]

Online retail giant Amazon.com said it has teamed with the U.S. Department of Defense in an effort to let Americans buy holiday gifts for members of the Armed Forces. Seattle-based Amazon said that in conjunction with the Defense Department, it has created an online destination at its site where customers can purchase a gift certificate […]